Dancer's Ways Blog

An emotion is a reaction of the body and mind to a signal emitted by the senses and managed by the spirit; joy, anger, fear, peace ... it goes straight to the soul. An emotion is very intense but very short. Feelings are the result of emotions, which are not as intense, but last longer. Pain (emotions) is inevitable; suffering (feeling) is optional.

The mindset or state of mind is a way to remain, to be; it is the result of a feeling alive for a long time, the result of an emotion, and can be very long. (For example, pain is an emotion, sadness a feeling and depression a state of mind).

Emotion is like lightning, spontaneous, powerful and unpredictable. Feeling is the thunder following lightning, predictable, lasting longer in the middle of the rain. The humid earth is the mindset, the result of the storm.

In the EMOTIONAL VISION we will try to awaken our consciousness in order to have close contact with our present moment.

What I propose in dance is to use emotions and feelings as a source of creativity.

Arriving

After forty-five minute drive to the mountains, I follow Gerard Marsal’s car to the venue.
The road to the place was not found by the GPS. I feel a mix of excitement and familiarity. Excitement to get to know this unique tribe of teachers, dancers, musicians and free souls that have coalesced at Dancers Ways. Familiarity as my grandmother was born in Alcover, right at the bottom of the mountain where we are.

As I step down of the car a big dog greets me as if we were old friends. I feel welcomed. The air is moist and the forest that surrounds us has a grounding effect on me. As I’m guided around by Gerard, I notice an air of gravity around the work that’s happening. Patricia García (Alhazar), teacher and one of the Dancer’s Ways founders, further elaborates on it, as we sit down to drink a cup of hot tea. The retreat just started today, and she guided the group on a meditation to see their whole life path up to this moment. She said “it’s an amazing group. They opened up, right on. They are doing the work, just as it’s meant to be: to find yourself through dance.”

It was in early summer that the second edition of our dance retreat “shapes of my emotions (2)” took place.

We have decided to repeat this retreat that we did the previous year and to change the term intensive to retreat, which is more relevant to the content of this experience. This retreat was a beginning, of a new awareness, an awakening of the dancer in total alignment with the first concepts addressed in our online school.

The International Dance Committee (CDI, in relation with UNESCO) established the International Dance Day in 1982 and its date of April 29th was chosen to commemorate the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), the creator of modern ballet.

The goals of International Dance Day are to unite the world of dance, to pay tribute to dance, to celebrate its universality, crossing all political, cultural and ethnic barriers, to bring humanity together in friendship and peace around dance, the universal language.

Our first Intensive was wonderful, we were able to count on a group that was motivated, inspired and curious!

Under the watchful eyes of the trees, our teachers, we were able to work on our posture, our anchoring, our presence, we were able to meditate, bury our secrets...

Thanks to the gentle caress of a swimming pond’s water we transposed the different states of the latter to our bodies. We shared our emotions with it, and we danced with it!

The wind, always present to carry our karmas and clean our spirits, let us take advantage of its force to let ourselves go to a light movement…

The imposing rocks, that surrounded this place filled with nature and mystery, that were our secret cave during these few days, laughed at us sometimes when we tried to imitate their forms and outlines, but were rather impressed when our bodies turned into rocks to resemble them.

With Dancer’s Ways, I learned a new way of working in a team, with love and enthusiasm, with the goal of turning a big idea into reality, impossible to achieve alone… And what a team! On one side we have Alhazar and Illan Rivière, for me two amazing dancers by their pedagogies, their open hearts, their ideas and above all, their dancing! On another side we have Le petit gerhard and his music, where each sound reveals a life experience, a story, a smell, a culture, a sensation; Albert, who became my photography teacher along the way, with an unbreakable knowledge, always eager to teach me something to improve a picture; Last but not least, Pablo, our web designer, accountant, legal expert, and much more; who works night and day to give birth to this project and make the internal vision just as beautiful in reality.

Silence doesn’t exist. You can chose to ignore it, not listen to it, but it is here, constantly, vibrating, swaying. It appears from nothing and joins what’s already in presence, colours the present moment and disappears again, leaving space to more sounds. This has no end, and is everywhere.

Listening to sounds relaxes me. Discovering the perfect harmony of each place, each street I walk on, each wood I walk through. Everything resonates in a certain way, with its own intensity, in due time.

When I met Illan, something changed in my dance. I discovered another vision, I discovered that dance was everywhere, in all that surrounds us, in the trees, the stars, the wind, the water, the animals… In nature, in the buildings, in the factories, the streets, the people, on the train, on the plane, at home, in you, in me …everything took another meaning, a new vision, a new learning. All that seemed significant no longer is and what I didn’t even see before is now crucial. We learn by observing, listening, but if no one shows you what it is to be seen or what paths are to be walked on, our own path, we remain blind.

Whether being on stage, at home, in a dance class…have you ever had this feeling that something was missing while your were dancing? Your body is there, your technical skills are there, your choreography is there…but you…are you really there? If you feel that something is missing, it is probably because you are not being present…you and your stories, something to express, to share, to feel, to cure, something new to experiment.